NASCAR 2005: Chase for the Cup

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More cars, more tracks, and it's a hell of a lot more intimidating.

By Ivan Sulic

NASCAR 2005's objective is to deliver a more complete, more accessible experience players can relate to, get into, and become lost in. The first component of this new year's new game that will help the team at Tiburon achieve this end is Chase for the Cup. For the first time, NASCAR will climax.

Rarely has it happened in the past that the final race ever determined the season champion. Previously, a points system could determine who the top three drivers of the year are going to be weeks before the final lap even takes place. This is no longer the case. The Chase for the Cup ensures NASCAR culminates in one spectacular season ender. In the final race, the top ten drivers of the year (determined by 26 previous races) will all vie for the ultimate standing. The other competitors, still able to race, will try and rank for prize and endorsement, but only the champion of the top ten leaders will be crowned the single season winner. This is Chase for the Cup.

To say NASCAR 2005's "Chase" begins rather unconventionally is a serious understatement. After booting up the game and beginning the equivalent of the career mode for the first time, players will find themselves stopped at a red light. Moments later NASCAR pro Ryan Newman pulls up and a street race is on. Once you beat Ryan he'll be so impressed with your skill he'll invite you to run the occasional mod as part of one of his teams. This is where it really begins.

At a basic level, a player of NASCAR 2005 need only drive and win. But, to really experience the full crux of the game after weeks of scheduled events, the more experienced player will want to manage his team, hire and fire members of the pit crew, hire and fire drivers, configure cars, buy and build new ones, and overtake four series of races. Let's say for the sake of argument that you only want to race. If this is the case you'll appreciate all that was NASCAR 2004 and then you'll notice a few additions.

Too Close

A sense of speed for the eyes... Trackside detail has exploded. Because of this, so has the impression that we're riding rockets. The tar fills of Taladega's aged speedway seem totally natural -- the yellow-clad half-cops that protect the rail do, too. And, if you doubted the production quality Electronic Arts places into its games, the meticulously done skyboxes complete with eerily lifelike cloud formations that roll and separate will change your mind. This insane level of clutter and detail, when presented neatly across every inch of every track, flies by at such tremendous speeds it creates an illusion of ridiculously fast movement without ridiculous blur effects.

A sense of speed for the ears... While it may take a scrutinizing eye to recognize the new level of visual quality presented this year, anyone with two functioning ears should be able to appreciate the new audio system. Last year's work was thrown out the window and newer, meaner, more positional, grander 5.1 native audio is being developed for Xbox, PlayStation 2, and GameCube. We also found it hard to believe until we shut our ears off to everything but the track. The oncoming doom of a 750 horsepower beehive about to lap you is just terrifying, but more subtle effects -- the sound bubble that envelops proper drafters and the shift in wind on a three-wide -- make the experience immensely more believable. Again, thank EA's panache for production quality and its insistence to professionally mic real racers during real races and pro drivers on closed circuits while pumping the direct fed audio onto high quality DVDs. The sound is really hard to quantify, other than simply stating, "It's how you'd think it should be."